Government oops: Local woman not dead, wants $ back

One day, Betty Longshore, a 92-year-old Port Angeles woman, had $17,000 in the bank. The next day, it was gone. The government had declared her dead and taken her federal retirement benefits.

Except there was a problem. Longshore was very much alive.

“Someone just pushed the wrong button, and whoosh, I was dead, and that shouldn’t happen,” she told the Peninsula Daily News, which reported the mistake Friday.

The government thought Longshore died last July and notified her bank in February of her death. The bank was then required to take her benefit money and return it to the government, the newspaper reported.

But did she get it all back? Read the full story at the Peninsula Daily News here.